Medieval displays of bible stories

In a society where literacy wasn’t as widespread as it is today and there was no entertainment from theatres, cinemas or the TV – let alone online technology – the average serf in the Middle Ages was a sucker for visual and colourful display. This was most in evidence on the many feast days that the church peppered the calendar with, normally associated with rhythms of the agricultural year.

Rituals, processions, mystery plays and gaudy decoration where all part of bringing the bible to life for ordinary people – particularly given that the bible was an expensive book, illuminated by monks, often chained up in the church and written in Latin.

In those parts of Europe where the Reformation resulted in the Catholic church being overthrown, it’s rare to see this kind of showy religiosity anymore. The use of idols and reference to saints and superstition was hated by the Protestants. But in many parts of southern Europe, you can still get a sense of what the medieval festivities would have been like.

I visited the northern Portuguese town of Viana do Castelo during their “Romaria” this year – a four day festival celebrating Our Lady of Agony. Saints were carried round, biblical scenes acted out and local people danced and sang. The willingness of the Catholic church to turn a blind eye to some of the more pagan elements of this goes back to the early church and the need to subsume pagan ritual and practice into the church – to swallow up old practices and re-brand them. So where a pagan goddess was once processed round a Roman town – she was duly replaced by the Virgin Mary.

The mix of pagan and Christian is still very evident to me but I leave you to judge from the images below.